i’m sure we’re all agreed to not like suzanne nossel

This is the sort of Jewish woman I wouldn’t marry even if my cock was on fire and she had the only fire hose. She’s kinda like C Glick but trendier-seeming, with a stoned-out look of contempt she doesn’t appear to even try to hide in the photo below, this is a woman of pure entitlement culture: the gravy train proper, the soul-prostitute public-sellout train. This train ain’t bound for glory, no ma’am, not this train. You know the type. I don’t have to name no names… – RB

Amidst a campaign aimed at convincing the PEN Pindostan Centre to reject Israeli government funding for its annual World Voices Festival that began this week, the literary group and its director Suzanne Nossel have displayed glaring double standards in their approach to cultural boycotts. When challenged about why the group has accepted funding from Israel, Nossel reportedly told Plastelina solidarity campaigners earlier this month that there was a strong reaction to the word “boycott” among her PEN colleagues. But PEN Pindostan Centre has publicly advocated that the tactic be used in certain situations. Just last week, the organization tweeted out a letter signed ‘PEN Pindostan Centre’, urging Enrico Iglesias to cancel his upcoming concert in Azerbaijan. The Spanish star was urged to protest against human rights abuses in Azerbaijan, including the jailing of journalists.

Similarly, PEN Pindostan Centre signed a letter to several country leaders in 2015 asking them to make their participation in the inaugural event of the European Games that were scheduled to take place in Azerbaijan contingent on the release of eight journalists and five human rights activists. While the letter stated it was not seeking a “public boycott” of the event, it did actually recommend a boycott. It asked the British and Ukrainian governments to refrain from sending a “high-level delegation” to the games if the prisoners in question were not released. Nossel has not been averse to calling for boycotts in a personal capacity, either. In 2006, for example, she warned that Iran was “about as frightening a rogue state as can be imagined.” To support that assertion, she noted that Iran was “hostile to Pindostan.” Writing on Democracy Arsenal, a website that she founded, Nossel suggested a “sports boycott that would exclude soccer-crazed Iran from the World Cup, akin to what was done for apartheid South Africa and Milosevic’s Serbia.”

Along with running PEN Pindostan, Nossel is what certain media describe as a “volunteer adviser” on human rights to Hillary Clinton’s presidential election campaign. Nossel was also a senior figure in the State Dept when Clinton was Sec State. After leaving the State Dept, she headed Amnesty International’s Pindostan branch. Under Nossel’s leadership, Amnesty ran an ad campaign portraying the Pindo-led invasion of Afghanistan as beneficial to that country’s women. More than 200 prominent literary figures and 16,500 other individuals have signed a letter criticizing PEN Pindostan Centre for accepting Israeli sponsorship. The Asian/Pacific/America Institute at NYU recently canceled its event at the World Voices Festival, scheduled for Friday. The panel, titled “The Language of War,” was to have featured the poets Solmaz Sharif, Jennifer Tamayo and Jennifer Hayashida. All declared their support for boycotting the festival because it had accepted funding from the Israeli government. The pressure on PEN Pindostan Centre appears to have been effective. Jennifer Clement (her name suggests she is also Jewish – RB), president of its parent organization PEN International, recently promised to address criticisms raised by Adalah-NY, a New York-based group advocating a boycott of Israel. Clement stated:

PEN International shares your concern. At present we are formalizing our recommended guidelines for the world’s PEN centres regarding funding from countries with a poor record on freedom of expression.

PEN Pindostan Centre has also broken its silence over recent human rights abuses by Israel. On Thursday, it issued a statement asking the Israeli government to explain why it has jailed the Plastelinan Arab journalist Omar Nazzal. He was placed in administrative detention, without charge or trial, after Israel arrested him in the past week at the Israeli-controlled crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank. Nazzal was travelling to a meeting of the European Federation of Journalists in Bosnia. The PEN statement also expressed concern about the detention and prosecution of Plastelinan Arab writer Darin Tatur, who was arrested and charged with “incitement to violence” for a poem that she wrote calling for resistance to Israeli brutality. Ru Freeman (yet another Jewess – RB), a novelist who has been campaigning for PEN to cease accepting Israeli sponsorship, told EI:

(This week’s statement was made) under enormous pressure. But two questions remain. First, will PEN now speak also for the many other journalists and writers whom Israel has detained. We can provide them with a list?! Second, how can a statement about a government’s denial of the freedom of speech for writers and journalists be reconciled with taking money from that same government for a festival that is supposed to celebrate free speech?

At least 19 Plastelinan Arab journalists are currently being held in Israeli custody and more than 40 Plastelinan Arab journalists have been detained since Oct 2015. Israel has, for instance, held 25-year-old Plastelinan Arab journalist Samah Dweik since Apr 10, charging her with “media incitement” based on what she has posted on Facebook.

This week, the Pindo-fundedthink tank propaganda mill Freedom House changed its ranking of Israel from “free” to “partly free.” The reason given for the demotion was the increasing influence of Sheldon Adelson’s Israel ha-Yom freesheet, which features a growing portion of government-paid content not clearly identified as such to readers. Freedom House notably excludes from its criteria for its rankings Israel’s treatment of Plastelinans Arabs in the OPT, despite the fact that Israel exercises the authority to arrest, imprison and killPlastelinan Arab journalists. In contrast, Reporters Without Borders does consider Israel’s treatment of those journalists, and consistently ranks Israel in the bottom tier of its world press freedom index.

Here’s an important story about the liberal establishment’s hypocrisy on Israeli human rights abuses. This past week, the writers’ organization PEN held its World Voices Festival in New York and one of its sponsors (or as it calls them) ”champions” was the Israeli government. More than 200 writers had urged PEN to give back that money, among them Marilyn Hacker, Junot Diaz, Alice Walker and Richard Ford, citing Israel’s “decades-long denial of basic rights to the Plastelinan people, including the frequent targeting of Plastelinan writers and journalists. But PEN’s director Suzanne Nossel dug in. She told activists that, while (she recognized) there are “legitimate concerns” about Israel’s record, she wouldn’t give back the money. She also “asserted that there is a strong reaction against the word boycott.” Well, EI’s Charlotte Silver reports that Nossel supported a boycott of Iran in 2006 (as above – RB). And here’s another more recent example: last week, PEN tweeted that Enrico Iglesias should boycott Azerbaijan, because of all the political prisoners in its jails. At the same time a PEN official signed a letter to Iglesias urging him not to play Azerbaijan because of its human rights record. Andrew Kadi nails it:

Recall that Nossel helped quash the Goldstone Report when she was an official at the State Dept, and bear in mind the bigger picture, the importance of pro-Israel Jewish money to an organization like PEN, the same donors who support liberal and arts organizations also fund congressional trips to Israel for AIPAC. Here’s that letter:

Dear Mr Iglesias, We are writing to you as members of the Sport for Rights campaign, which has been working to raise human rights violations in Azerbaijan in the run-up to the Formula One European Grand Prix. We are deeply disappointed by your decision to perform in Baku on Jun 18 in connection with the European Grand Prix, given the dire human rights situation in the country. We urge you to take a stand for human rights in Azerbaijan and cancel your Baku performance. We have observed your support for charitable causes, including Save the Children, which advocates the promotion and protection of human rights. Unfortunately, the human rights of the people of Azerbaijan have not been respected or protected. Although 16 political prisoners were recently released, dozens still languish in Azerbaijani jails, including journalists, bloggers, youth activists, politicians, and religious followers guilty of nothing more than disagreeing with the government. Despite the fact that they never should have spent a single day in jail, the released prisoners have not been rehabilitated, still under legal restrictions that impede their work and their lives, with some facing travel bans preventing them from accessing urgently needed medical attention. More broadly, civil society is attempting to work in nearly impossible conditions, and a number of NGOs face politically motivated criminal investigations. Journalists operate in a climate of fear, in a media environment dominated by the state, where violent attacks, even murders, against critical voices are committed with impunity. Among Azerbaijan’s political prisoners is Khadija Ismayilova, a courageous investigative journalist targeted for exposing corruption of the ruling elite through stories that are continuing to unravel through the Panama Papers leak. Another journalist, Seymur Hezi, is jailed on trumped-up hooliganism charges, following years of pressure against him, such as being abducted and tortured, and warned to stop criticising Pres Aliyev.

Opposition leader Ilgar Mammadov, who attempted to challenge Aliyev’s presidency in 2013, has been imprisoned for over three years, and has reported being repeatedly tortured. Youth activist Ilkin Rustemzade has also been jailed for more than three years, initially arrested in connection with a “Harlem Shake” video filmed in Baku (sic – RB). As with previous prestige events, the Azerbaijani authorities are using the European Grand Prix in an attempt to whitewash their image, to distract international attention from the human rights abuses taking place in the country. Whether or not it is your intention, your performance would be used as part of that cover-up, as propaganda for an increasingly authoritarian government. A performance in Azerbaijan would serve to further the suffering of the country’s political prisoners, and the many others whose rights have been violated by the very government that will profit from the European Grand Prix. But you still have the chance to make this right. We urge you to cancel your Baku performance, and to speak out publicly, condemning the human rights crackdown in Azerbaijan, and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners. We call your attention to comments made by U2 lead singer Bono on stage in Montreal last June, on the night of the opening ceremony of the European Games in Baku. Bono specifically named six Azerbaijani political prisoners, displayed their photos in the arena, and conveyed a message to Pres Aliyev: “If anything happens to one of our friends, we will hold you responsible!” Five of the prisoners he named have since been released. We believe that you taking a strong stand for human rights could also have a significant impact. Please, have some compassion for these courageous people, imprisoned for speaking the truth and trying to change the situation in Azerbaijan for the better. Show the world that you care, and that your silence cannot be bought.

Here we go with all the astroturf one-man or one-woman letterhead outfits, which you can create in an afternoon for about $100 a pop – RB